kneading - the song

Hi,

Just a light anecdote to brighten your day and perhaps provide some "assistance".  :-)

I perform all my breadmaking by hand - partly because I don't have a mixer and partly because the meditative aspects of breadmaking are half the reason I bake bread. 

Tonight, as I mixed Hamelmann's Oatmeal Bread by hand (big hunk of dough, that!) ALONE in the kitchen (sigh!), my mind began to wander as I hit the rhythmic stage of kneading.

You see, usually I am accompanied in my (daytime) breadmaking by my 2 year old son, who is a precocious chef.  He usually insists on 'helping'.  When he is no longer satisfied with his own blob of dough, I have developed a novel method to keep his hands out of the way -- the Kneading Song.  I promise you that once you hear this it will be forever stuck in your head as you knead - so beware if you read further!

Now he automatically sings it when I'm kneading (and sometimes when we are in the shops - much to the confusion of my fellow shoppers):

(to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat)

Knead, knead, knead the dough

Make it nice and smoooooth

Fold it over, push it down

And now you're in the groooove

(Repeat until kneading is over; or as is usually the case, until you can get the #$!@ song out of your head!) 

Happy kneading!

MommaT